Council 'open to all possibilities' over pool site

Coventry City Council says it is "open to all possibilities" for the site of disused swimming baths earmarked for demolition, while a neighbouring facility could house sport once again.

Coventry's Olympic-sized pool and adjoining leisure centre on Fairfax Street have been empty since closing in 2020 to save money, and last week it emerged the government had approved plans to bulldoze the pool section.

On Monday, the council's deputy leader Lynnette Kelly said the authority would look to see whether the leisure centre known locally as The Elephant "can be repurposed... for some sort of sports activity or social activity or community".

Groups have previously objected to the pool being demolished.

Figures obtained by the BBC in August last year revealed almost £2.3m had been spent on Coventry Sports and Leisure Centre by the council since it was shut in February 2020.

The authority has said the Grade II-listed, council-owned building had "come to its natural end", amid spiralling maintenance costs.

Regarding the pool area, Kelly said "the plan is once the building isn't there any more, let developers come forward and say to us what they would like to do".

She added the council had "vague ideas of what could go in there and I think something residential could be... quite good there, it's near the cathedral, it's near the city centre".

Kelly stated: "We will look at all opportunities that come our way. We're not fixated on any particular idea. We are open to all possibilities."

The deputy leader said the council had been "marketing [the site] for six years and nobody has come forward with a plan for the building, nobody wants it, so we need to demolish it and then have a rethink".

She added the authority was "quite confident that we should be able to get" government funding for knocking it down.

Asked how long it would take to demolish and clear the area, assuming the council got that money, she replied she "wouldn't like to speculate on the timescale".

The Twentieth Century Society has objected to the demolition proposal, saying the total loss of the building was not justified by any benefits.

They pointed to the loss of a building that could be reused by the public.

Coventry Society has also objected on the grounds of "insufficient justification" and added the site was in a sensitive location near the Cathedral Quarter.

But the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government Steve Reed "has concluded that the benefits of the proposal outweigh the harm to the heritage asset".

Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.